Sliding in to the end of the year

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 It is the penultimate week of school. I sent out an email on Saturday that I would no longer be accepting work and if it was turned in there was no guarantee it would be graded. So I have received a boatload of late work. Yesterday I had 5 soccer players in my room wanting me to go ahead and let them play even though they are failing the class. I refused and they were pissed and I don't really care. I hate to see kids so disappointed and I know they really want to play, but they should have considered their grades months ago, not just now because they want to play. One kid literally said he had a game in 20 minutes. Give me a break. Anyway, I'm sticking to my guns and I'm not grading any late work. It says in my syllabus that late work will not be accepted. I'm going to have to be a lot tougher on this next semester. In fact, I'm thinking of doing a syllabus update in January and I may highlight that. I'm not sure yet. But I'm really, really tired of late work. Especially when it's weeks late. Last night someone turned in scientific reading #1 - nope, nope, nope. I'm going to let them fail. See, I tend to wuss out because it's easier on me if I pass them. If they fail that means I have them again next year. Since they obviously aren't very good students, why would I want them again. Also, none of them are going in scientific or medical fields. So I will let them scoot through with a low C and call it good. Nope, nope, nope. I'm done with that. I need to be harder on the due dates, maybe have a way of posting them, maybe on my agenda board. I also need to be better at grading. I know that I've been lax in my grading time frame, sometimes taking weeks to grade something. I have to work on getting that done quicker. If I have something due on Sunday, it gets graded on Monday. At the same time, I need to be more deliberate about the assignments I have them turn in. Sometimes I will say to turn something in when I have no intention of grading it or I do plan on grading it and then I forget. So I really need to rethink this over the break and become much more deliberate about it. What I need is to set the graded assignments before hand. So that I know and can plan for them. So maybe in a unit we will do the first worksheet together as a class then the second worksheet will be homework and graded. That means planning for it and having a better system than I do now. Okay, something to work on during the break. I need to get moving now. 

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